It first came to my attention when Victoria, who blogs at Tales from the Reading Room, chose it as one of her books of the year in my Book Bloggers' Advent Calendar last December. In her review, Victoria said: "Everyone should read this book and feel it chip away any ice around their hearts, to let our admirable human capacity for love and compassion flow through."

And I concur: this book puts paid to the notion that non-fiction is boring or dull. I was entirely captivated by it and ate it up as quickly as I could.

A series of case histories

Written by Stephen Grosz, an American-born psychoanalyst who has a practice in London, it reads like a collection of short stories structured around five key themes — beginnings, telling lies, loving, changing and leaving. These, in turn, are broken into short chapters, some of which are are only a few pages long. Each chapter is a case history of one of Grosz's patients — adults in psychoanalysis whom he has met four or five times a week for 50-minute sessions over several years.

As he explains in his preface, "all tales are drawn from day-to-day practice. These stories are true, but I've altered all identifying details in the interests of confidentiality".

The book shows how Grosz is able to help people who feel trapped — whether by circumstance, poor decision making, foolishness, fear or past history, among other reasons — to change their lives and their behaviour for the better. It's important to stress that these people are as ordinary as you and I. In fact, you will probably recognise friends, colleagues, family — perhaps even yourself — in these pages. For that reason alone, it makes for a riveting read, full of "light bulb moments". It shines a light on the human condition and the terrible muddles we sometimes get ourselves into without even realising we are doing it.

Stories that resonate

There are several stories that have stuck with me. The first was about a boring man called Graham whose girlfriend broke up with him after she told him he bored everyone he talked to: "Can't you tell when someone goes dead behind the eyes?" she asked.

Grosz explains that there are many psychological (and often unconscious) reasons why people are boring — to avoid talking about a particular subject or because they are envious and do not want to hear a helpful idea coming from someone else. But in Graham's case it was a form of aggression, "a way of controlling, and excluding, others" because it protected him from having to live in the present, which he didn't know how to do.

The second story that resonated was from the chapter entitled "How praise can cause a lack of confidence". Here, Grosz explains that today's parents lavish too much praise on their children, which devalues it.

Often a child will react to praise by quitting: why make a new drawing if you have already made "the best"? Or a child may simply repeat the same work: why draw something new, or in a new way, if the old way gets applause?

He adds that it is far better to simply spend quality time with children, to interact with them and pay attention to them instead of doling out "false" platitudes. "Being present builds a child's confidence because it lets the child know that she is worth thinking about," he writes.

Indeed, that seems to be the overriding message of The Examined Life: each of us wants the people in our lives to be present — to listen to us, to communicate with us, to be there for us — as opposed to being absent, whether physically or psychologically. Many adult problems stem from this sense of absence in childhood, but not everyone recognises it.

Sheer readability

The best thing about this book — aside from the astonishing amount of insight it provides into human psychology — is its sheer readability. It is totally jargon-free and written in clear, simple language. And because Grosz personalises it — he writes almost as much about himself as his patients — you can identify with the problems discussed even if you've never experienced any of them yourself.

It's very moving in places, occasionally shocking, sometimes funny. It's all done with such a lightness of touch despite the fact each case history delivers a powerful message — or makes you think about things, and people, in a new light.

I started The Examined Life thinking I'd just read two or three chapters. Before I knew it, I'd read the whole thing (in two sittings) and as soon as I'd finished I wanted to turn back to the start to begin again. Truth, it seems, is sometimes more intriguing that fiction.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Shuichi Yoshida's Villain isn't your typical crime novel. Yes, there is a crime at its heart — the murder of a young woman — but it's not a police procedural and it's fairly obvious from the start who committed the crime, though we are never completely sure why he did it.

The book is more a look at the outfall of the murder on a series of characters — including the woman's hardworking parents, her friends and the accused — and how they adjust to changed circumstances. As such, it provides an interesting glimpse of contemporary Japanese society.

A young woman's murder

Yoshino Ishibashi is a young insurance saleswoman who has moved to the city to work and have fun. She is a regular user of dating sites and has become acquainted with several men — the rich college boy Kiago and the good-looking but aloof construction worker Yuichi — but she doesn't have a serious boyfriend. Yet that's not what she tells her flatmates, Saki and Mako, who believe she's seeing Kiago on a regular basis — a notion of which Yoshino does not disabuse them.

This, of course, muddies the waters when Yoshino does not return home after supposedly meeting Kiago very late at night for a date. When her body is discovered in the remote and forbidding Mitsuse Mountain Pass, Kiago is immediately put in the frame. Then, when his friends admit he's been missing for several days, there seems little doubt that he must be the murderer.

However, as events unfold, Kiago's role in Yoshino's murder isn't as quite clear cut as first thought — but to say more would spoil the plot.

Troubled characters

The most interesting aspect of this novel is the ways in which different characters react to the crime: the two men accused go to ground, but when one of them is cleared, he turns boastful; the victim's father becomes incredibly angry and wants revenge, while his wife becomes an emotional mess and cannot function properly; Yuichi's grandmother finds herself caught between defending her grandson and protecting herself from a blackmailing scam she's become caught up in; and an additional character, Mitsuyo, a department store worker, finds herself falling in love with the alleged perpetrator and goes on the run with him.

Their stories, their emotional and inner turmoil, are told using various viewpoints — third person and first person — which can, occasionally, be confusing, but this narrative structure gives the reader a well-rounded picture of a group of people struggling to readjust to life after the murder.

It also provides a fascinating portrait of life in Japan. It may just be the lower class portrayed here, but everyone seems obsessed by three things: food (there's endless descriptions of it), sex (many of the characters visit "love hotels" and one is a prostitute) and consumer goods as status symbols (cars in particular). All the young people are working lowly paid or menial jobs and the women are doing all they can to find good husbands. I got the feeling that almost everyone in this novel felt alienated from the people they loved and the world in general (a common theme, I've noticed, in other Japanese books I've read). It's a bleak picture, tinged by criminality, poverty and despair.

Detached prose style

The book is written in clear, lucid prose in the kind of flat, detached style I've come to expect from Japanese crime novels (interestingly, the author translated it himself). It's a style I generally like, but I found my interest in the story waning the further I got into it. I think the lack of central narrator with which to identify (and cheer on) may have had something to do with this.

It didn't help that many characters had similar names, which I found confusing, and I simply didn't care enough about any of them to want to keep reading, so getting to the end of this novel became a bit of a hard slog.

That said, Villain is a rather thought-provoking book and I've come away from it not quite sure who the real villain was, something I suspect the author wanted to achieve. To what extent is the murderer the villain, because surely there are other factors at play? Was his upbringing to blame? Should the person who put the victim in a dangerous situation but not commit the murder take responsibility? Or is the victim to blame?

The story focuses on single mother and struggling artist Eva Magnus. One sunny day she is walking along the river with her seven-year-old daughter, Emma, when they discover a man's body in the water.

For a few moments they stood transfixed, staring at the sodden, decomposed body as it floated, head first, in amongst the stones. He was lying face down. The hair on the back of his head was thin and they could make out a bald patch. Eva [...] looked at the waxen-coloured corpse with its matted blond hair and couldn't remember seeing him before. But those trainers — those blue and white striped high-top trainers.

Emma urges her to phone the police, but when Eva finds a public phone box to make the call she only pretends to do so. Instead, she speaks to her father and makes no mention of what she has found. She then takes Emma to McDonald's for a Happy Meal — and tries to ignore the body in the river.

Of course, the police eventually discover the man and it's clear his death wasn't the result of drowning: he had 15 stab wounds in his lower back, bottom and abdomen.

Investigations by Inspector Konrad Sejer and his colleague Karlson reveal that the man had been missing for six months. He was 38 years old, married and had a six-year-old son. He was last seen when he took his car to meet a prospective purchaser: the vehicle was later found abandoned in the municipal dump.

Was he the unwitting victim of a "desperado wanting money" or did he have a large debt or know something he shouldn't have known?

A whydunnit, not a whodunnit

The unusual thing about this novel — and this is common in all of the Fossum novels I have read — is that it's pretty obvious from the start who committed the crime. What you don't know is how they did it — and why.

This is a particularly tricky approach to take but Fossum does it expertly without any loss of narrative tension. The first part of the book is a cat-and-mouse game as Sejer hones in on the likely suspect; the rest is told as a confession from the killer's perspective. What you end up getting is a police procedural cum psychological thriller. Indeed, Fossum ratchets up the tension by throwing in the odd red herring — and then she delivers a real twist at the end which had me sucking in my breath in complete surprise.

And while In The Darkness is a shocking tale, Fossum treats her subject matter — poverty, prostitution and murder — with huge delicacy and compassion. There's a real humanity to her writing, because she is interested in exploring the impact of the crime, not only on the victim's family but on the perpetrator and, to a lesser extent, the police themselves. It's hard not to read this without feeling empathy for all the characters — guilty and innocent alike.

Finally, I just wanted to mention something about the poorly designed, rather drab cover of this particular paperback edition. The picture of a slim little girl on the front has absolutely nothing to do with the story (seven-year-old Emma is mentioned very briefly in this book and it is clear that she is a rather obese child, which doesn't match the image used). And then there's the roundel, which proclaims Fossum as a contemporary Patricia Highsmith — I'm not sure the two authors have much in common, aside from the fact they are both interested in the criminal mind. Does this kind of marketing bumpf really push sales?

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Remember that project I set myself at the start of the year, the one in which I read at least a dozen books from my TBR that are listed in Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die? Well, this is book four (I'm woefully behind) — and what a mixed bag it turned out to be.

First published in 1997, Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha seems to be one of those novels that everyone has read. It has even been turned into a Hollywood film. For some inexplicable reason, both have passed me by.

Written as a fictional memoir (including a fictional "translator's note" at the beginning), the book tells the extraordinary story of one woman's life as a geisha.

Sold into slavery

Chiyo, a pretty grey-eyed child, is born into an impoverished fishing family living in a village on the coast of the Sea of Japan. But as her mother lays dying, her aged father sells nine-year-old Chiyo and her older sister to a man with connections to the top geisha houses in the Gion district of Tokyo.

The sisters are separated, and Chiyo — now renamed Sayuri — must learn to adjust to a new, often cruel, way of life as a young slave in a geisha house.

The book follows her education and "apprenticeship", describes the auctioning of her virginity and her subsequent rise as one of Japan's most celebrated geishas.

Japanese history

Sayuri's story spans 25 years — from 1929 to a few years after the end of the Second World War — and provides a fascinating glimpse, not only of the secret world of the geisha, but of Japan's history during that era.

Boxall describes it as an important book for its "glimpses into a way of life that has all but disappeared. It also provides a disturbing view of the place of women in Japanese society and culture".

And I have to concur — Memoirs of a Geisha shows the reader how these women were exploited and degraded, but it shies away from going into too much sordid detail. It also shows how these women complied with a version of womanhood that many men expected — they were to be pretty, enchanting, entertaining and erotic, but they were not to be independent or to live lives of their own. But by the same token, successful geisha were well looked after and enjoyed a comfortable existence.

An engaging voice

I initially fell in love with this book. I enjoyed learning about the rules and rituals of life as an apprentice geisha and was mesmerised by the narrator's engaging voice. It is testament to Golden's skill as an author that he is able to pull off such an authentic female voice — and to do it with so much empathy and without casting judgement or aspersions.

But as the story wore on I began to tire of its repetitive nature. While Golden provides some narrative tension in the form of petty rivalries between certain geisha — the geisha world is highly competitive — there's only so much squabbling, trickery and cruel gamesmanship I can take. Dare I confess that almost 500 pages of it is far too much?

Perhaps because I had already read a real memoir of a geisha's life — Sayo Masuda's Autobiography of a Geisha — it felt like I'd read this story before. But on the whole, this is an intimate account of a secretive way of life. Not only does it hone in on historical and cultural truths, it is an epic human story about surviving against the odds.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 195 pages; 2005. Translated from the French by John Cullen.

This is the third novel by Yasmina Khadra that I have read: the first, The Attack, was set in war-torn Israel; the second, The Sirens of Baghdad, was set in war-torn Iraq; and this, Swallows of Kabul, was set in war-torn Afghanistan.

All three books explore long-established cultures being torn apart at the seams, usually from within — and while considered and intelligent, all are unbearably bleak with little joy in the narratives.

Life under the Taliban

First published in 2002, Swallows of Kabul examines what it is like for ordinary citizens to live under brutal Taliban rule before the American invasion in the wake of 9/11.

When the book opens we are immediately thrust into the dark reality of a
public execution and by the time the narrative comes full circle, just 195 pages later, we are
back in the stadium to see another condemned person put to death by the state.

In between, we meet two very different couples whose lives become intertwined in an inexplicably cruel and unusual way. They are: Mohsen Ramat, an educated young man who once wanted to be a diplomat; his beautiful wife, Zunaira, who has had to give up her career as a magistrate because women are no longer allowed to work; Atiq Shaukat, a jailer who guards prisoners who have been sentenced to death; and his wife, Musarrat, who is dying of an unspecified, incurable illness.

Subjugation of women

As a portrait of life under a frightening and oppressive regime, Swallows of Kabul is an illuminating and often distressing read. It is particularly good at highlighting and exploring the Taliban's subjugation of women.

For example, Zunaira refuses to leave the house, because she doesn't want to wear the compulsory burqua. "Of all the burdens they've placed on us, that's the most degrading," she tells her husband, before adding: "It cancels my face and takes away my identity and turns me into an object."

But even without the Taliban's harsh rules, women are essentially second-class citizens in this culture, so when Atiq confesses to a friend that he is distraught about his wife's illness, he gets little sympathy: "Kick her out. Divorce her and get yourself a strong, healthy virgin who knows how to shut up and serve her master without making any noise."

The impact on men

But the book is equally good at examining the effect of the Taliban's rule on men. Both Mohsen and Atiq are desperately unhappy and, in a rather ironic way, emasculated because they feel they cannot control their wives.

Mohsen, who has seen his dream of a successful career shattered, is beginning to feel "infected" by the new order. In a telling scene at the beginning of the book, he gets caught up in the collective hysteria of a public execution and throws a stone at the female prisoner, experiencing "unfathomable joy" when he sees "a red stain blossom" where he has struck her. This action later torments him, so much so that when he confesses what he has done to his wife, it almost destroys their marriage.

Meanwhile, Atiq is depressed by his job in which innocent people are put to death, and his home life isn't much better. He must look after his ill wife alone, because, for one reason and another, the couple have been abandoned by family and friends. It is a lonely existence and there is no solution in sight. He does whatever he can to avoid going home, even if that means wandering the streets in a daze.

A bleak but important read

You may have gathered that I didn't find Swallows of Kabul a
cheery read — though perhaps that's not surprising given that it is set in Kabul, where "pleasure has been ranked among the deadly sins".

But as an insight into a foreign culture and way of life
it is very good, and it is exceptional at showing how an oppressive
regime can infect and poison mindsets by spreading violence and hatred
and destroying the very things that make us human.

The bleakness of the book is only bearable for two reasons. The first, is the elegant prose and the exisiqute detail of Khadra's writing — the descriptions of Kabul are particularly good. And the second, is the narrative tension created by wanting to know how the lives of these two disparate couples will come together. When the connection becomes clear, it is both shocking and disturbing and certainly one of the more memorable endings in a novel I've read for quite a while...

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Is there a word for the male equivalent of sassy? If so, it should definitely apply to James Scudamore's Heliopolis, an easy-to-read black comedy with a hard-hitting edge, that was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009.

Adopted by a very rich man

The story is set in São Paulo, Brazil, a violent city split into two very distinct classes: the rich, who live in high-rise apartments and commute by helicopter, and the poor, who live in favelas and shanty towns, and provide manual labour and unskilled services for the wealthy.

Into this sharply divided society we meet our narrator, 27-year-old Ludo, who has a rather cosseted, if somewhat vacuous, job at a PR/advertising agency in the heart of the city. But Ludo, who wants for nothing, is lucky to be in his current position.

As a child, he was plucked from a favela with his mother and given a new life by a rich man, Zé Fischer Carnicelli ("a supermarketeer with political aspirations"), and his English wife, Rebecca. Ludo was raised with Zé and Rebecca's only child, Melissa, while his mother became their cook at the farm — "palm hearts, bananas and a small Brahma beef herd" — a luxury retreat used by Zé on the weekends.

Look what can happen in a generation: my mother lived in a flimsy shack, and I have my own place and car, and I can speak and read and write better than most of the playboys you'll meet, because I paid attention in school. But this is no normal case study. What happened to me does not happen. And unless you're extremely good with a football, it definitely does not happen if you are male.

When the book opens we discover that Ludo is having an incestuous affair with his "adopted" sister Melissa, who is a lifestyle journalist ("she only seems to write about the kind of lifestyle that very few — herself among them — can afford"). Melissa lives in an extravagant penthouse suite with her husband, Ernesto, an anthropologist, who is absent for long periods doing research for his doctorate. When Ludo begins receiving anonymous and abusive voice messages on his phone at work, he suspects Ernesto is the culprit.

But then life takes on an even more dangerous twist when Ludo is given a dubious work assignment that takes him back to the favela from which he has turned his back.

Fast-paced narrative

The central core of the novel — and what makes it work as a page turner — is the very real danger that Ludo feels as the story progresses. He may have been rescued by Zé, who "hasn’t been down to street level in the city for over fifteen years", but he is still very much aware of what life is like in the favelas — desperate, difficult and violent.

Indeed, the book paints a far from flattering portrait of São Paulo, a city of 20
million people, where life is cheap and "nothing gets in the way of
commerce".

The metropolis as a place of menace, where people are seemingly indifferent to danger and death, is evident from the start of the novel, when Ludo has a run in with a boy who is later shot by a security guard.

The women scream. The victim screams. The cars on the flyover continue
to lurch and blare. Just one more frenzied city drama in a thousand, to
be forgotten and absorbed into the oozing traffic, and perhaps mentioned
in passing over lunch. [...] When the guard gets out his phone to call
the police, I look at the pink car-park ticket in my hand and realise
there's nothing more I can do but get to work. I'm late enough as it is.

On the whole, Heliopolis is a fast-paced, often comedic read that delves into thriller territory. It also explores several intriguing themes that provide the book with some intellectual weight — the importance of food within cultures and classes, for instance, and the glaring gap between the rich and the poor.

I found it entertaining and illuminating, and I loved Ludo's engaging, often smug, occasionally contrite voice. My thanks to KevinfromCanada for the recommendation.

Saturday, August 04, 2012

Norwegian author Karin Fossum is quickly turning into one of my favourite crime writers. The Caller is her tenth novel in the Inspector Sejer series — and the third one I have read. Even though the books feature the same detective they are not strictly police procedurals. Instead Fossum's perceptive — and empathetic — eye turns towards the perpetrator and the victims as she explores the cause and effect of often horrendous crimes.

A baby drenched in blood

The Caller begins in spectacular fashion when an odd crime is carried out. A young couple, Lily and Karsten Sundelin, are eating a meal indoors while their baby sleeps peacefully in her pram in the garden. When Lily goes to bring baby Magrete inside she feels a terrible foreboding. The baby is drenched in blood. The understandably distraught parents assume she is bleeding from the mouth and rush her to hospital. But once she is checked over, the nurses reveal the baby is unharmed — and that the blood is not hers.

Cue a police investigation, headed by Inspector Sejer and his colleague, Jacob Skarre. Had Lily or Karsten done something to upset someone? Was this an act of revenge? Had a former jealous partner wanted to scare them? Or was it a woman who had lost her child in a terrible way?

Later that evening Sejer finds a hand-delivered postcard on his doorstep bearing the message: “Hell begins now”. It has a glossy photograph of a wolverine on the front. “There will be more attacks,” he tells his colleague. “We’re dealing with a beast of prey.”

And he is right: this shocking incident turns out to be the first in an increasingly bizarre string of brazen and cruel “pranks” that terrorises a wide cast of unsuspecting victims. The book charts the ensuing cat and mouse game between the perpetrator and Sejer and Skarre, who try to track him down.

Portrait of a tormentor

It’s not a plot spoiler to reveal that the perpetrator is a young man, Johnny Beskow, who still lives at home with his alcoholic mother, whom he loathes. We meet him in chapter 4 and we discover how he chooses his victims, and why.

But Fossum does not paint things in black and white: Beskow may be carrying out criminal acts, he may wish his mother was dead, he may be filled with malice — but there are reasons for his warped worldview. And he’s not without the capacity to love: he dotes on his elderly grandfather, whom he visits regularly, and the caged guinea pig he keeps in his bedroom.

Essentially The Caller is not a whodunit, but a whydunit: what makes a young man carry out such spiteful crimes on random victims? And will he eventually get his comeuppance?

The human cost of crime

This neatly structured book interleaves Beskow’s storyline with that of the police investigation and that of the victims, both before and after the crime is carried out — it is fascinating to see how the Sundelin’s marriage begins to crumble as each partner copes with the crime in different ways; Karsten is angry and eaten up by a desire for revenge; Lilly’s fragile vulnerability turns her into a nervous wreck and she can no longer function normally. And it is equally fascinating to see how Beskow rationalises his actions — and how his conscience begins to bother him.

But it is the exquisitely planned plot which makes this novel an exceptional one: the impossible-to-guess double-twist ending left me gasping in shock.

Ripe with intelligence, suspense and psychological insight, The Caller is the cleverest and most involving crime book I’ve read this year.

Monday, February 20, 2012

I seem to be going through a minor, and completely unplanned, phase of reading suspense novels right now, so what better book to continue the theme than Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley, a classic of the genre? This is where I also stick up my hand and confess that I've never seen the film, so I came to the book with no preconceptions whatsoever. I had no idea of the plot, nor the wickedness of the central character Mr Ripley either.

A suspense novel of the finest order

First published in 1955, the book is a suspense novel of the finest order — precisely plotted, written in concise but stylish prose, and filled with brilliant characters.

But unlike many suspense novels, where you fear for the good guys that have found themselves in a difficult situation, in this fast-paced story you actually cheer on the perpetrator. In this case it is Mr Ripley, a 23-year-old loner, who commits two atrocious murders.

From the outset, we learn that Tom, who lives in New York, isn't the most honest of characters. He hates his circle of friends, lies about his job and commits tax fraud under a false name. Raised by an aunt, whom he detests, he continues to accept the cheques she sends him, because he's desperate for the money.

But when he is offered the chance to go to Europe on an all expenses paid trip, Tom sees it as an opportunity to start his life afresh.

A trip to Italy

The trip, however, is not without its strings, for Tom has been "hired" by a wealthy industrialist, Herbert Greenleaf, to go to Italy in order to convince his wayward son, Dickie, to return home. It seems that Tom once met Dickie at a party, but for some reason Mr Greenleaf thinks they are close friends — Tom, knowing a good deal when he sees one, does nothing to disabuse him of the idea.

In the seaside Italian village of Mongibello, Tom befriends Dickie, an artist, and his American girlfriend, Marge, a writer. He is greeted with contempt at first, but soon worms his way into Dickie's affections and the pair become inseparable. (There are hints of unrequited homosexual love, on Tom's part, but they remain just that: hints.)

Of course, it's difficult to say much more without ruining the plot, but let's just say that Tom's hunger for money gets the better of him and he decides to bump off Dickie. Later, when one of Dickie's friends suspects that Tom is hiding something, he, too, is done away with.

Two murders down and with the police on his trail, the book's suspense element goes into overdrive as Tom tries to keep two steps ahead in order not to be caught. The story moves from Mongibello to Rome, Sicily to Venice, and all the while he covers his tracks so superbly you begin to wonder if he will ever make a false move. Surely Marge can see through his lies? Doesn't Mr Greenleaf suspect him of evil doing? Can't the police tell he is making things up? And won't the private investigator, brought in at the last minute, find him out?

Cheering on a killer

Funnily enough, even though Tom is a killer and a wicked, manipulative little man, you can't help but cheer him on. Yes, he's probably a psychopath — he certainly doesn't show empathy for any of his so-called friends or victims — but it's hard to dismiss him as evil. He is so lacking in self-confidence and self-esteem, and so desperate to be liked and accepted by his peers, that you end up empathising with his conniving ways and become enamoured of his quick wit and ability to think on his feet. Essentially, you appreciate his talent as a conman and killer.

And that, I think, is the real success of this novel, because Highsmith really gets inside the heads of her characters and so expertly depicts the complicated tangle of human relationships — people's loyalties, their weaknesses, the things that make them tick — that the characters and their predicaments seem entirely plausible. You can appreciate why Tom is jealous of Marge, can see that Marge is foolish to pin all her hopes on a man who doesn't truly love her, and that Dickie is self-centred and spoilt. And you understand completely their motivations, which probably explains why you can never truly condemn Tom for his actions. He wants money, freedom and success — don't we all? — he's just gone about achieving it the wrong way.

I read The Talented Mr Ripley in two longish sittings, because I just had to know whether Tom would get away with his crimes. If you want to know if he gets his just desserts, beg, borrow or buy a copy...

Sunday, January 22, 2012

David Malouf is a critically acclaimed and prize-winning novelist and poet from Australia. Fly Away Peter, his third novel, netted him The Age Book of the Year in 1982 and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1983.

A Great War novel

It is a truly beautiful and devastating story set before and during the Great War. I read it in two sittings and felt stunned by the sheer power and emotion that Malouf wrings from just 144 pages of eloquently written prose.

When Fly Away Peter opens it is 1914. Jim Saddler, a 20-year-old man from southern Queensland, devotes his time to watching birds in the estuary and swampland near the home he shares with the father he does not like very much.

One day he meets the owner of the land, Ashley Crowther, a rich farmer not much older than himself, who employees Jim to record the coming and going of the birds — both native and migratory species — as part of his plan to create a sanctuary.

A little later Jim befriends an older English woman called Imogen Harcourt, whom he sees in the "sanctuary" taking bird photographs which she sends to a London magazine. These photographs also accompany the long list of birds that Jim transcribes into a special book using his "best copybook hand, including all the swirls and hooks and tails on the capital letters that you left off when you were simply jotting things down".

Trio of characters

This trio of characters come from vastly different backgrounds — Miss Harcourt is an English immigrant who lives alone, Australian-born Ashley was educated in England's finest schools, Jim has never left Queensland — and yet they are united by their mutual love of birds and the natural world.

When he talked to Miss Harcourt, as when he talked to Ashley Crowther, they spoke only of 'the birds'.

But their idyllic existence comes to an end when war erupts in Europe and both men decide to sign up — Jim goes to Salisbury, England, to be trained; Ashley is an officer in a different division. It is here, on the battlefields of the Western Front, that Malouf's extraordinary novel really comes into its own.

The mud and the trenches

His gut-wrenching descriptions of the mud and the trenches and the fear of going over the top are eloquent and moving, as is his depiction of the friendships, and occasional personal hostilities, formed on the front line.

There is one particularly god-awful scene in which Jim loses his best friend in the platoon, a larrikin called Clancy, that is more horrifying and bone-chilling than anything I've ever read about the Great War.

But the great strength of Fly Away Peter is the way in which Malouf not only describes how war is a machine, spitting out more and more young men who will die horrible deaths far from home, but also the way in which he contrasts the fighting in the trenches while the residents of Armentières are getting on with their day-to-day lives:

Often, as Jim later discovered, you entered the war through an ordinary gap in a hedge. One minute you were in a ploughed field, with snowy troughs between ridges that marked old furrows and peasants off at the edge of it digging turnips or winter greens, and the next you were through the hedge and on duckboards, and although you could look back and still see farmers at work, or sullenly watching as the soldiers passed over their land went slowly below ground, there was all the difference in the world between your state and theirs. They were in a field and very nearly at home. You were in the trench system that lead to the war.

Explores Australian myths

It's easy to see why the novel is a set text in many Australian schools. It explores the myth of the Australian soldier and the ANZAC spirit, and contrasts the horror of war with the beauty — and peace — of the natural world. It shows how an appreciation and respect for nature is a great leveller, crossing the boundaries of race, class and experience. And the text is rich with symbols, not least the migratory birds which represent Jim's "flight" to the other side of the world.

But it is the poignancy of the ending, in which Miss Harcourt stands on the beach and reflects that life continues to move on — "Everything changed. The past would not hold and could not be held" — that elevates this novel from excellent to exceptional.

I read this book as part of Australian Literature Month, which runs throughout January 2012. The idea is to simply read as many novels as I can by writers from my homeland and to encourage others to do the same. Anyone can take part. All you need to do is read an Australian book or two, post about Australian literature on your own blog or simply engage in the conversation on this blog. If you don't have a blog, don't worry — you just need to be willing to read something by an Australian writer and maybe comment on other people's posts. You can find out more here.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Loaded is the first novel by Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas, he of The Slap fame. To say the book is loud, brash and in-your-face would be an understatement. It brims with raw energy, power and verve. It's audacious — and confronting.

It's also pornographic and those who don't really want to know the detail of casual, often anonymous, gay sex should probably stay clear. But the sex is central to the novel's focus, for Ari, the narrator, is 19, unemployed and trying to find his way in the world. He is bored — and self-destructive. He's looking for any kind of experience to lift him out of his ordinary, dull, suburban existence. And if that means getting it off with strangers in nightclubs and public toilets, then so be it.

Ari is also a drug user — and occasional pusher.

Stark subject matter

Yet despite the stark subject matter and the clear-eyed prose, there's something sad and tender about this story.

Spanning just 24 hours, we get a glimpse of Ari's frustrating home life — his father, a Greek immigrant, calls him an "animal" and is prone to angry outbursts; his mother, an Australian, shouts and nags — and see how he prowls the city — its streets, its suburbs, its nightclubs — because he needs "something else going on".

What's clear from the outset is that Ari, aimless, directionless and confused by his sexuality, has a bleak world view shaped by the things he sees around him — his parent's unhappiness ("I love my parents but I don't think they have much guts. Always complaining about how hard life is and not having much money. And they do shit to change any of it"), the casual racism among his peers and the ways in which the immigrant community is just as obsessed by money and class as the "skips" (white Australians).

He thinks he looks like John Cusack

He is intelligent, good-looking ("I saw John Cusack interviewed on late-night television and he looked like me") and obsessed by movies and music. In fact, he spends most of the novel mooching around listening to mix tapes on his Walkman (the music references are particularly good if you are of a certain, a-hem, vintage).

But what resonates most is Ari's sense of alienation — from his parents (in particular, his father's Greek background), his older brother (who is studying at university and is not afraid to stand up against his domineering parents), his friends (who have gainful employment) and himself (never quite sure if he is gay or straight).

This alienation is reflected in the city he sees around him — the narrative is very much tied to Melbourne's suburban enclaves and is split into four parts named East, West, South and North — which he loves and loathes in equal measure. I particularly enjoyed his references to suburbs and places I know from my time living in Melbourne (which is about the same time that events in the book take place) and thought his descriptions of the Eastern suburbs (which are more affluent than the West) — with their "continuous loop of brick-veneer houses forming a visual mantra" — pretty much spot-on.

In the East, in the new world of suburbia there is no dialogue, no conversation, no places to go out: for there is no need, there is television.

An angry young man

The strength of the novel lies in Ari's voice, which is angry, full of self-loathing and deeply cynical. He's not necessarily a likable character, but he is empathetically drawn.

Loaded isn't the type of novel you read for "pleasure", but it's worth reading because it offers an eye-opening peek inside a rarely seen world. It's like getting on a rollercoaster for the first time: it's deeply frightening but once the ride ends you're glad you found the courage to experience it.

I read this book as part of Australian Literature Month, which runs throughout January 2012. The idea is to simply read as many novels as I can by writers from my homeland and to encourage others to do the same. Anyone can take part. All you need to do is read an Australian book or two, post about Australian literature on your own blog or simply engage in the conversation on this blog. If you don't have a blog, don't worry — you just need to be willing to read something by an Australian writer and maybe comment on other people's posts. You can find out more here.

Welcome

Reading Matters features hundreds of book reviews of mainly modern and contemporary literary fiction, with a special focus on novels from Australia and Ireland, and occasional forays into crime, true crime, translated fiction, narrative non-fiction and memoirs.

Your host is Kim Forrester, otherwise known as kimbofo, who has been blogging about books since 2001.